When Harry S. Truman brought the United States into what everyone knew was a very real war, without congressional approval or consultation, he did it under the guise that it was a UN “police action.” To preserve the independence of South Korea and to reverse the North Korean aggression and its crossing of the 38th Parallel — the line dividing North and South Korea — he did it the only way possible: by sending in the boots on the ground. There was an air war, and serious bombing of North Korean positions, but the battles were fought over an endless series of hills and went on for years. The war only came to an actual end when President Dwight D. Eisenhower negotiated the “truce” we still are living with, and arranged repatriation of POWs.

What President Barack Obama did in his speech to the nation, however, is an entirely different approach. I’m not sure, as is our PJM colleague Victor Davis Hanson, that the war is a bad idea. I think that there were numerous reasons that can be established that make our intervention necessary. These include the distinct possibility that if Qadaffi were to win, he would do as he promised — exact the very retribution he promised against the rebels and the cities in which they were prominent, thereby carrying out a massacre that might only be paralleled by the massacre carried out by the late Syrian dictator Hafez-el Assad in Hama in 1982. And Qadaffi might very well have resumed the kind of terrorist attacks against Western targets that he has done in the past, such as bringing down airplanes as he had done in Lockerbie.

I do not believe, however, that the uncritical celebration of Obama that has been the response by Bill Kristol is also warranted. Kristol argues that “the United States really should have the backs of those fighting for freedom. How willing the president is to overcome his prejudices and to reorient his whole attitude toward the Middle East and the world, we don’t know. But we can hope for change.” Kristol is certain that the president won’t “cut and run,” that he understands that this is a fight the United States has to win.

Therefore Kristol believes conservatives must cease all criticism of the problems inherent in Obama’s approach, and simply “give war a chance.” But if we cease criticism, and find that the president is failing to implement the kind of measures that assure Qadaffi’s defeat, how is pointing out the ambivalence and contradictions in the president’s policy a bad thing? If the Republican Party is today the “party of freedom,” as Kristol thinks it is, then why is it harmful to point out the major pitfalls facing the president as he tries to destroy Qadaffi without supporting regime change in Libya and without taking the kind of measures that will guarantee the outcome?

In the very same speech that led Kristol to dub our President “Barack H. Reagan,” President Obama also said that he was ruling out the entry into the conflict of American troops. By making that announcement, Obama saw to it that he was closing off a step that, if all else fails, might be a step that he has to reluctantly take.

In his letter to Sen. Mitch McConnell and Sen. Harry Reid, Florida’s new Senator Marco Rubio rightfully points out that a bi-partisan resolution by the Senate authorizing the use of force in Libya to oust Qadaffi is necessary. Rubio writes that “this resolution should also state that removing Muammar Qaddafi from power is in our national interest and therefore should authorize the President to accomplish this goal. To that end, the resolution should urge the President to immediately recognize the Interim Transitional National Council as the legitimate government in Libya.”

To state this goal as that of the nation would proclaim it as a bipartisan policy of the people at large, not simply as an American war that is illegal and unconstitutional, as Sen. Rand Paul argued in his own response. Paul argued using the logic of the Old Right of the 1940s and 50s, as well as that of today’s anti-war paleoconservatives, grouped around the American Conservative magazine. Paul cites Defense Secretary Gates’ now famous statement that the United States had no “vital interest” in Libya; a statement eerily similar to that made on the eve of the Korean War by Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who told Congress that Korea was “outside” of the U.S. defense perimeter, thereby leading Kim Il-Sung to believe that aggression by his regime would meet with no opposition.

I happen to disagree with Paul’s anti-interventionist position. Nevertheless, he raises legitimate questions that have to be faced, when he argues that:

Intervening in a civil war in a tribal society in which our government admits we have no vital interests to help people we do not know, simply does not make any sense. Libyan society is complicated, and we simply do not know enough about the potential outcomes or leaders to know if this will end up in the interests of the United States, or if we are in fact helping to install a radical Islamic government in the place of a secular dictatorship.

To close off criticism, as Kristol suggests, is to make it a certainty that problems like those Paul points to will not be addressed, until it might be too late. Today, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates told Congress that there would be no American troops in Libya, “as long as I’m Secretary of Defense.” At the same time, he declined to comment on the news reports that the president has authorized the CIA to enter Libya, to advise the rebels and to gather intelligence of airstrikes.

Undoubtedly, the comment made by Rep. Howard P. McKeon, (R. Ca.) that “history has demonstrated that an entrenched enemy like the Libyan regime can be resilient to airpower,” is accurate. McKeon noted that “if Qaddafi does not face an imminent military defeat or refuses to abdicate, it seems that NATO could be expected to support decade-long no-fly zone enforcement like the one over Iraq in the 1990s.” And, eventually, although he did not make this point, ground troops might be the only step that could be taken to make the military intervention successful.

If so, who will provide them — the French? To date all the powers who back the military effort seem to be hoping that it will not come to this, that air strikes, CIA advisors and a no-fly zone that already has been successful will do the job. But the latest news reports indicate that rebels are still in retreat, and that Qadaffi’s forces are advancing and have a great deal of fight left in them. Indeed, Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen were testifying, the news report notes, just as “Colonel Qaddafi’ s forces pushed the rebels into a panicked retreat, and recaptured towns they had lost just days ago because of allied airstrikes.”

Moreover, although Gates told the congressional panel that the intervention would be limited and would end in Qadaffi’s successful removal from power — a goal the President contradicted by arguing that the intervention was only one of a humanitarian nature — Gates would not say what would be done if Qadaffi is still in power.

Bill Kristol may say that he supports the war because it is one being fought for regime change, but according to Gates, “We tried regime change before, and sometimes it’s worked and sometimes it’s taken 10 years.” Clearly, Gates is ruling that out as a reason for the intervention. The Senate has not as yet passed Marco Rubio’s proposed resolution, and the chances that divided Republicans and peace-minded Democrats will support it is, I believe, rather slim at present.

Others have pointed out that even if President Obama gives the order to arm the rebels, the kind of military hardware they would be given takes months of training to use, and the current rag-tag rebel army would not be equipped to use them effectively and therefore would be unable to win victories against Qadaffi’s forces even with these arms.

That leaves us with the question it seems few are as yet willing to advance. If air strikes are not working, and armed rebels still are retreating, clearly the only way to succeed in pushing Qadaffi out – it is not enough for Obama to say “Qadaffi must go” — will be some nation’s ground troops. This is not the ’90s, when our Bosnia intervention could be handled by NATO airstrikes in Belgrade.

Yes, Mullen and Gates have told Congress that other nations have troops, and they can handle it. I’ll see it when I believe it. The only superpower with the ability and the amount of troops needed for success is the United States. But our president has ruled that out. If he changes his mind, which he may well have to if it seems failure is imminent, he will be in the position of again reversing a promise he made a short time ago. Secretary Gates would most probably resign than agree to be in charge of implementing such a step, and new opposition would arise in the country at large.

I hope our mission is successful, that the current level of intervention leads to a quick defeat for Qadaffi and his regime, and that a new government dedicated to a democratic Libya comes into being. But I wouldn’t count on it.

60 Comments, 36 Threads

I’m constantly amazed at the stupidity of the United States government, especially the wars it has been fighting for the last 10 years.

Nothing was learned from the Soviet experience in Afghanistan, and the war over there seems endless and pointless.

The war in Iraq did absolutely nothing to help America, to make us more secure, or to give us cheaper oil. It was just a vendetta between the Bush family and Saddam Hussein.

Now the government is getting involved in the Libyan civil war. The official reasons are obviously lies (just like Iraq), and I fail to see how arming and/or supporting the rebels will benefit America and Europe. If our government wants stability, shouldn’t it be supporting Khadaffi?

“The war in Iraq did absolutely nothing to help America, to make us more secure, ……..”

Wrong! You think Iran with nuclear weapons is scary? How scary would an Iraq with nuclear weapons be, co-existing next to Iran with nuclear weapons? Sooner or later, Iraq would have had to arm with nuclear weapons simply as protection against Iran. All of the Husseins were psychos, including his two sons, with a grudge against the US for the first Iraq war. You and others should re-think what could have been.

Yes and no.
Ghaddafi is a monster, but a solitary monster who poses no threat to us. Oscambo acted illegally in going to war against him and must be impeached, tried for murder and executed, as expeditiously as possible.
The “rebels” are the tools of Islamic Jihad, which poses a serious threat to us. We should let Ghaddafi squash them and stay to hell out of crazy raghead country. We have no right in Iraq, Afghanistan , Libya or any other nutcake jurisdiction, but we must take out the iranian nuclear operation, and it would be a really good idea to neutralize the Pakistani nukes, too, at the same time, as they are both real and present dangers to us. But we need to do these things behind congressional authorization, not on the whim of a sociopath who delights in killing babies and promoting faggotry.

Kristol argues that “The United States really should have the backs of those fighting for freedom. How willing the president is to overcome his prejudices and to reorient his whole attitude toward the Middle East and the world, we don’t know. But we can hope for change.”
No more of that hope and change stuff when blind faith is required for an unknown ideology. Who are these rebels and how do we know their real intent? The rebels have neither face nor uniform. The enemy of my enemy may also be my enemy.

Truer words were never spoken…in the convoluted world of Mohammadans, nothing ever makes sense, because “sense” is a western idea of fairness.

Their aint no ‘fair” in the ME. There are no “good guys” measureably better than the really really rotten ones. The lesser of any two evils is still a nasty thug who will send assassins to slit your throat after you helped him to power.

What else can you expect from a culture that sanctifies lying as a holy tennant? That worships a child molesting murderer-thief as the “ideal man” to emulate?

Good people cannot predict or anticipate, control, reason, convince cajole or influence, the irratic, irrational behavior of evil.

Nothing we do towards them will cause an effect we desire for ourselves.

Yep: “Kill them all; God will know His own”. And this from a bishop. And, of course, realistic tactics like this are always self-defeating. Just go to your nearest Albigensian church and ask the congregants whether or not it’s possible to ‘kill an idea.’

Every Christian must have only one interest in the Mohammedan world — as many dead as possible. In case you haven’t noticed, leftists approve of military intervention in only one case: where we will aid enemies of America. Kosovo and Bosnia are the latest examples. If Bush wasn’t such a dummy, he only had to point out Saddam’s violations of the cease-fire, which not only justified, but required, a resumption of hostilities. Although Leftists and Mohammedans are enemies, they are allied right now against Europeans and European civilization.

Its “tenet” and “toward”. A spineless congress has allowed a moslem-communist, ineligible to be president, a madman, a pervert, a mass murderer, to attack a foreign nation without congressional authorization and in a manner aiding and abetting enemies sworn to destroy us. And 44 % still support him? Incredible!

There was no reason for us to go in. Libya, militarily, is a cream puff. France, Britain, US-less Nato and the Arab League should be able to handle Libya. We should have said, “Sorry, the Mediterranean is your sphere of influence, and we can’t afford it”.

Since our current leaders lack the competence or stomach for doing wars right, we shouldn’t fight any that are not about defending our actual interests and our homeland. Even our more able leaders in modern times have hamstrung themselves and the military when going to “kinetic military action.” So why bother?

Korea was a very different matter. When North Korea invaded, there were significant numbers of American personnel – mostly Army – already in Korea. They were almost immediately involved in the fighting. Libya was a unified country a couple of months ago – ruled by a vicious dictator, to be sure, but a single country, and with no American military presence. The Libyan rebellion was an internal matter – not an invasion by a separate nation. While Truman’s action of not asking for a declaration of war has long been debated, he was acting in a pre-War Powers Resolution era and coming off a very powerful, wartime administration, defending an ally and client state against very clear aggression. I suggest that the international situation and Amercian politics have so changed since 1950 as to make the comparision between Korea and President Obama’s action in Libya in 2011 unwarranted.

I agree that the Korean War and the Libyan Whatever-It-Is are two very different matters. Gates and Obama are obviously uncoordinated. Gates’ comment that boots won’t be on the ground “as long as I’m SecDef” is more doublespeak from this regime. Gates answers to Obama. Gates doesn’t make the decision to put ANYTHING on the ground.

As I’ve always said, Gates and Obama are incompetent. Neither has the ability to act in the USA’s interests, only their own. Neither can formulate any cohesive foreign policy regarding American military force.

Just as Truman’s indecision in 1950 allowed the NorKor forces to succeed in its initial advance, Obama and Gates’ ineptness and inane comments will allow a thrid-rate military force in Libya to kill its own citizens and defeat NATO’s best (sic) efforts.

I don’t see any good reason for us to be in the middle of a Libyan civil war. I think the president and his buddies felt we could get a quick win which would give us better standing in the Arab world and demonstrate that the president can be a war time president. This won’t end well.

The Korea analogy is spurious. It clearly was an invasion of one nation by another aggressor nation. Libya is a civil war conducted by evil people on both sides.

The conservative mainstream and grassroots really aren’t all that divided, either. They increasingly oppose this ill-conceived action for good reason: the rebels contain elements of al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood. If Kristol and the rest of the lunatic fringe on the Right are all that serious, they need to explain to the loved ones of those slain in battle and murdered by these same terror groups why it is in our national interest to sack a neutered dictator and install these same monsters in his place. And let’s face it. That is what this is, and why Gates likely will resign and tell the world that Obama has entered into a de facto alliance with al-Qaeda.

Just this afternoon, NATO warned the rebels that they, too, would be subject to airstrikes if they massacre civilians. Our intrepid intelligence services must have discovered the nature of the rebels after the bombing began. In other words, ready, fire, aim.

Does anyone believe this can end well?

Here’s what the likely conservative consensus will be–subtle withdrawal with threats to both sides to resist massacres. Hillary and Kristol may not like it, but the saner elements of their respective parties will be quite relieved.

The basic position to take is just say no to Libya and any other new conflict on the basis of presidential incompetence in the first instance and a tendency to politicize virtually every issue he touches. There are no more teachable moments from this empty suit. Any sane citizen should know by now that we have the worst president in history at the helm and sitting near the red phone. We cannot wait for his term to end.

“If so, who will provide them — the French? To date all the powers who back the military effort seem to be hoping that it will not come to this, that air strikes, CIA advisors and a no-fly zone that already has been successful will do the job.”

The Turks are more than willing to make that job !

Besides, the French alone wouldn’t be numerous enough, as our army is nly made of professionals.

There really isn’t any such thing as “NATO Troops” or “UN Troops”. Those organizations do not have a military entity. The various nations that comprise these organizations send their own military units under the command of a general who is from a member nation. NATO and the UN do not employ professional soldiers and do not have a standing military force.

Yes, to get a toe hold in the country for Iran. Turkey is rooting for Iran and its axis.
Iran already has a basic control of Lebanon through its foreign legion, Hezbollah, of Syria through Assad’s minority sect’s dependence, a base at the mouth to the Red Sea in Eritrea so it can tie up the gulf oil region and now what better than to get at the Mediterranean oil.

I am more than annoyed that so many conservatives have supported intervention in Libya. We have no national interests at stake, and there was no evidence of wholesale slaughter of innocent civilians such as there was in Iraq and even Kosovo. In fact there is a negative. By intervening to try to topple a regime that had backed away from its nuclear program, we encourage Korea and Iran to pursue theirs. They have to be thinking: “This is what a concession to the US buys you.” And they are right.

Skeptical conservatives should take the position that we do not engage in any more wars undertaken by an undocumented president who isn’t even prepared to be honest about what he is doing and who is led by the nose by 3 harridans who can’t even be bothered to determine whether the rebels they support are Islamists (who they wouldn’t recognize anyway).

All due respect to the author (who’s opinion I actually do respect), but my time in the service, in large part in the intel arm of the navy (during the Carter and Reagan years), and my years of study of military history show a simple fact.

Military operations motivated by appearances will not be successful. They might make some politicians feel good and buy them votes in the short term, but dedicated personnel, the ones actually taking part in the operations, will be injured, maimed and killed. And for no good reason.

The odds of safety and success are rigged against our folks when approaching military operations with such an attitude.

The political leaders that want our service personnel to serve at the whim of political leaders (and their appointed lackeys who’s military career’s are more political than effective) who’s policy can change day to day, depending on their perception of others perceptions of them.

Don’t get me wrong, Qadaffi is all fecal material. He’s a bad dude. I don’t support him in any way. I don’t like fire ants either. But kicking a fire ant hill barefoot, no matter how well intentioned, is going to cause a painful reaction. They will rebuild the mound. And even if they didn’t, another colony would take it’s place within weeks. All pain, no gain.

I’ve said it before (here, most likely). Whatever this group does, I just hope it causes the least loss of life to American personnel possible, and makes the smallest mess it can. The grownups will be back in charge in the near future. Less cleanup is good.

We shouldn’t be involved in Libya because, as Paul and others have pointed out, we don’t know what the outcome will be — and it very probably will be eventually an Islamist state, allied with all the worst Islamists in the world against us. We knew the outcome we needed in Korea — holding the line at the 38th parallel. Reagan knew what he wanted in Nicaragua — ousting the commies who were creating a beach head with support from the USSR and Cuba. (You might not have agreed with his support of the Contras, but his aim was at least clear.) If we’re going to wage war in Libya (or be part of some coalition) to stop a great massacre, why haven’t we done so against the Sudanese government which has, for more than a decade, starved to death, raped, and outright murdered, what? … hundreds of thousands of non-Muslim black Africans. I have a very bad feeling about this action in Libya, just as I did when we recently abandoned Mubarak, our only real ally in the region. We’re being played like a fiddle on many fronts, and I fear Obama’s incompetence is going to cost both the U.S., and particularly Israel dearly.

It most likely will be an Islamist state. Aside from “flickers of Al Qaida and Hezbollah” in the rebel ranks a much larger component are made up of fundamentalist Moslems who are up in arms at Kaddafy’s feminist and other modernizing reforms. Kaddafy outraged fundy sensibilities by abolishing the Moslem dress code for women allowing them to dress as they please. These poor religious fanatics had to endure the horror of seeing women dress in short skirts. Click my name and read the postscript of my latest piece: In Praise of Hillary’s Defense of Bashar Al-Assad (Satire).

This is ridiculous. No Conservative should support this illegal action. Obama grossly violated the 1973 war Powers Act. The discussion stops there. De-fund the operation. Now.

If Obama had come to Congress, and made a good case, then I might be able to support it.

“Libya is not in our own national interests. However, it is of great concern to our French and British allies, because of the oil pipeline. They have asked us for our help, and since they have helped us in our wars, I am willing to act in limited fashion. The goal is to secure the oil facility and pipeline. There is nothing to choose from in the combatants in this tribal war. Khadafi or someone else, there is no gain for us. I urge Congress to allow limited military action and ask them to provide funding for same. I ask that this have a sunset clause of six months, as a measure of good faith to the American people.”

Straightforward, with clearly stated goals. Humanitarian? Pah! I do not care if tribal Muslims kill one another. Correction, I think that is a good thing. Maybe arm the Eastern tribes and let the 7th-century savages kill each other off.

America seems to have put itself in the odd position whereby the most direct statement of regime change accompanied by the most effective action to do so are the two things we wish to NOT do and all for appearances sake. When one is shamed into doing a thing it will be half hearted and without true direction.

This leaves America in the position of taking half measures but with the full negative effects as if we had simply gone in and taken out Gaddafi. If you’re going to do a thing, do it right or don’t do it at all.

These measures, together with all the things you mentioned, are why I believe we should not have involved ourselves. Instead of letting the pressure be put on us, the U.S. for a change could have put very public pressure on middle eastern polities and the U.N. together with Italy and France to prevent any massacre from taking place. Once again America has let itself be played and stands to reap all the criticism with none of the rewards although Libya has yet to play itself out. The situation could change tomorrow but right now it is yet another big quagmire with no end game or means to achieve it if there was one.

If President Obama is to be criticized for anything it is for being led rather than leading and his leadership could have resulted in the U.S. accomplishing its goals without getting its hands dirty – instead, others have maneuvered the U.S. into the position we should have been smart enough to maneuver others into. This is diplomacy and lacking any knowledge or nuance, bombs were the answer. People should have listened during the campaign when Obama’s obvious lack of foreign policy experience should have told us he would have no solid vision to meet such a crisis.

No matter what the U.S. does or how many lives it saves, the threat of shame by doing nothing will be attached to America in any event and we will be accused of operating out of a history that has to do with oil, imperialism and cynical self-interest. Any one with a clue should have seen that the U.S. simply can’t win on this one because the most positive outcome is the most unclear and least likely.

Marc, you are right, the only real justification for western powers to enter this two-bit war is to protect the oil fields and insure continued flow. We could still do it, having destroyed the Libyan air and armor. Let the rebels help us only if we like them and they behave. They can fight for the rest of their country while we guard the oil fields. Let the Europeans pay for the whole operation – if they wouldn’t, then screw it all. An added benefit is the opportunity to take out Ka-whatever.
Of course, it makes no sense whatsoever to go to war for oil when we won’t even drill for what we have here.

This whole fiasco is why it is imperative that we get a true executive in the chief executive’s office. This indecision (and poor decision making, when one is finally proffered) is the direct result of putting a legislator (nominal at best) in a decision making position.

As far as 2012 goes for me, the only choice will be to vote for somebody with executive experience (either governmental or business), legislators need not apply. Ronald Reagan notwithstanding, current or former governors of deep blue states are also suspect. We have had enough experience with a legislator acting as an executive to last several lifetimes, and it may take that long to recover from it.

So Radosh thinks American troops won’t invade Libya because Obama says so. When has Obama ever told the truth about anything? Everything out of his mouth is a lie. My prediction; American troops in Libya before Christmas. But Obama will be right about one thing. No American boots on the ground. American soldiers wear boots made in Korea so there will be Korean boots on the ground. The feet in them will be American.

First, he starts war and then same day goes Spring Breaking to Rio with family. Took him 9 days to announce this to the American public. WRONG! And Congress was never consulted, from what I see.

We are there is response to UN and Arab League desires, they can pay for this 100+% then. (and UN needs to move out from New York! there are many countries that would be very happy to have them)

Obama, Gates, Hillary want to mention daily we have “no boots on the ground” over there – so is CIA and Special Forces we have there wearing Arab sandals or tennis shoes?

We’ve been packed with LIES since day one over this Libya Obama adventure. We ARE NOT the WORLD’S Police Force. After Arab League pays up for this adventure, we can train them to police their own.

We have American troops now reporting to a Canadian NATO commander – this is VERY WRONG too!

For the Obama method of “WAR In Libya”, there is nothing right about this whatsoever!

And we have many similar distraught nations in same or worse plight than the people of Libya, how did Obama arrive at his decision.

A good portion of these ‘rebels’ are al-Qaeda that tried, or accomplished killing US troops in Afghanistan or Iraq. I understand now we’ve declared we won’t arm them – we’ll see…

But the major question really is: Who the Hell are we trying to assist in Libya? I smell another Korea on it’s way. if we were there to assassinate qa-Ddafy, I’d be 100% behind this, but from what I know he’s ‘hands off’.

“And we have many similar distraught nations in same or worse plight than the people of Libya, how did Obama arrive at his decision.”

He may have been blackmailed. Obama loves coalitions. The French may have threatened that they would get out of Afghanistan if Obama didn’t support them in Libya. The French leaving Afghanistan would have been a political slap in the face to Obama.

Yet again, we are being deceived. The potentially decisive weapons now being deployed are Spectre Gunships (C-130′s)and Warthogs to rain torrents of explosive metal hell on Lybian armour, trucks, artillery and troops. Technically, these platforms are neither “no-fly” nor boots-on-the-ground. But since they fly low and slow, they do need (should have)air cover. No one is asking whether “we” under NATO command will continue such missions?

Similarly, it is perfectly clear that the Obama administration is being just as dishonect about arming and training, as it is devious about the jihadi composition of “the Rebels.”

Mr. Radosh is shockingly wrong: There will be NO “democratic” regime in Libya. This is the most foolish nonsense imaginable. It will be a fundamentalist, Salafist, Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda regime. The leader of the “rebels” is an al Qaeda recruiter and promoter. I think that essentially makes him al Qaeda.
This is a delusional idea. We are commiting Afghan Mujahadin all over again with eyes wide shut.
Get us the hell out of there! NOW!
We are not responsible for Europe’s panicked illegal Arab immigration control policy. Let Europe set up a zone sanitaire while we get back to paying attention to Iran — and now Syria. Like HELLO!

Mr. Radosh, if Kaddafy were serious about carrying out a mass slaughter on east Libyan cities like Benghazi (where the rebellion began) it would have happened by now. It took Hafiz Assad three weeks to level Hama and kill 20,000 Syrian rebels. Between February 15 (the start of Libyan protests) and March 19 (the start of Odysseus Dawn) Kaddafy had amble time to do to Benghazi what Assad did to Hama. During Kaddafy’s crackdown of rebels in the 90s he killed only a few thousand-not exactly a humanitarian disaster. Experience shows that Kaddafy is less of a monster than was Assad.

It would seem that Korea, Viet-Namn, Bosnia and Libya have one thing in common; all are military involvements in civil wars by American presidents. Our own civil war came close to the British becoming too involved in our conflict and could have drawn the British into a third confrontation on our soil. Libya is a tar-baby for us and I think the author of this article senses this outcome.

as a conservative it is my opinion that when they u.s. engages in military action then the result must be annihilation— none of this political pussyfooting that we have been conducting since the korean war

getting the enemy to surrender is the goal other that this is misguided

Have you ever asked yourselves why we came to the aid of the Libyan people Obama wants us to believe and not to the aide of million educated SECULAR Iranians who have been crying out loud for 32 years fighting the monstrous totalitarian regime of the Ayatollahs which by the way has been supported and kept in place by the elite Europeans plus the Syrian people who have been killed, tortured in big numbers over the years by Assad and still the West is MUTE against these monstrous regimes and prefers “dialogue and diplomacy” which by the way has not gotten us anything so far?
Well here is the answer:

In the case of Libya it’s been the interest of the Europeans to stop supporting Qaddafi. US always comes to the aide of its bastard child or better aid bastard parents Europe!
Europe milking the middles east for over a century is nothing new. And they are not going to stop that any time soon! They are happy just doing that with their back door appeasing policies with Iran ayatollahs and their troll Assad so far. So why rock the boat? US does what Europe demands!

Ronnie: The one common theme (believe it or not, there seems to be one)in most of the responses is, that the issue is complex. While I might Underline might) disagree with your conclusion. I appreciate the fact that you see the issue as tres comples.

It is worse that you think. The Libyan war makes no sense (although we have a history with Gaddafi, who richly deserves ending up hanging by his heels like Mussolini). But that is not the point. Why would we empower Al-Queda fighters (who go into battle shouting “Allahu Ackbar!”)? The head of the provisional authority has admitted that the local Al-Queda affiliate is a significant element in the coalition. Gaddifi say the “rebels” are Al-Queda. Are we to believe that Gaddifi is entirely delusional when the coalition admits Al-Queda involvement? We are told that this is all being done purely to prevent a “humanitarian” disaster. But we have taken no action elsewhere in similar circumstances (in Yemen and Syria, where people are being shot down in the street). Let’s not even mention Iran, where Obama went weeks without even commenting on Basjid militia killing peaceful protesters. No, a bigger game is afoot. The war with Libya is mainly meant to set the predicte for the imposition of a “no-fly zone” on Israel when the PLO declares unilaterally its “Palestinian State” with UN blessing next fall. Consider the facts: Samantha Power, a prominent (but little known by the public), member of Obama’s National Security Council, has long blamed Israel for the lack of Middle Eastern peace. She recentlly said that the United States, to achieve a Palestinian State, has to be prepared to take bold and dramatic action on the ground. It also has to be prepared to alienate a “powerful and rich constituency” in United States politics. I wonder who she had in mind. Obama has now created the precedent of not going to Congress for authorization before taking military action. Hillary let the cat out of the bag the other day when she said that (1) if there is a “humanitarian” crisis, (2) the United States is the only power equipped to engage in the necessary military action, (3) and the mission has been blessed by international organizations like the UN or the Arab League, then you don’t have to go to Congress for authorization. Consider the implications of that for a moment. Since Congress is a friend of Israel, by-passing Congress is a necessary element of any such plan. So the PLO will declare unilaterally a state after a UN vote. Abbas has already said that when this happens, all Israeli “settlers” in the West Bank will be expelled. If Israel rejects the declaration of a Palestinian state on a unilateral basis (with such a state at war with Israel), Palestinian gangs, with the blessing of the UN and aflame with nationalism, will attack the “settlements.” If Israel tries to take any action to protect Israelis in the West Bank from getting Fogle-family treatment, the United States, because of an Israeli blockade and the resulting “humanitatian crisis” among the Palelstinians, will declare a “no-fly zone.” If the Israelis respond with ground action, the zone will be expanded to a “no-drive zone.” Ultimately, in the name of “preserving peace,” it may be expaneded to include Israeli airspace. This will all be presented by Obama as an “unpleasant necessity” to solve the Middle Eastern peace problem and “save Israel from itself” — the unfortunate action of a friend, like an intervention with Charlie Sheen. And remember, it was all set up by the Libyan war, because Gaddifi is such an easy target, an aging dictator who can be dismissed as “mentally unbalanced.” Obama and Hillary, both Soros creatures, have created this scene with the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine, which justifies such “humanitarian” interventions.

I assume Obama will not provoke this crisis until after the election, so he can continue to pose as a “Friend of Israel” and gather thousands of votes of feckless liberal Jews. Will they be fooled again? Will their leftism trump their Judaism again?

daxypoo you hit the nail right on the head but that should only apply when there is a actual or imminent threat to our national interest. With hindsight I can see how Iraq fell under it but not Libya at all.
That said, we’re pussy footing around in three countries now. If we’re going to get in we must and get out fast as possible. Fuck nation building. Biggest mistake about Iraq was the nation building. We got lucky there let’s not press our luck else where.

I am inclined to cite the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where Custer stumbled into disaster because he had no idea of what he was getting into.

If you really don’t know, with a high level of certainty, the nature of your enemy and of his enemies you stay the hell out until you do. This is not a case where we have ben attacked and must be responsive. By openly giving support to Qaddafi’s enemies, and expecting him to fold like Mubarlak, we have assured that those we are helping will be mercilessly slaughtered, These, on both sides, are brutal medieval cultures, who truly don’t have any compunction about killing each other. In faact they kind of like it. On the muslim side they die willingly, convinced of achieving the special paradise reserved for martyrs. Qaddafi is perfectly willing to oblige them and doesn’t care if he is accused of genocide. We’ve alredy stated that we are out to murder him, so what’s he got to lose?

The “enlightened west” insists on employing multicultural, morally equivalent niceness to dealing with huge populations in the rest of the world who still cling to primitive, tribal, raw power rule, where “regime change” means replacing one despot with another. The UN is dominated by their representatives and their hatreds.

We should walk carefully, carry a big stick, and keep out of their problems until they threaten us on our ground. What’s so dificult about declaring that to be our Foreign Policy, and adhering to it?

The president is on his own in this little war. Our position should be that he has not made a coherent case for the intervention although it is conceivable that such a case might be made. For the moment we should be careful not to make it our war and at the same time avoid active opposing it. If it turns out to be an expensive failure we would be justified in pinning the blame on the president. This is politically expedient but it is also the right thing to do.